MENULandscape designs are changing – evolving actually. Fewer homeowners are satisfied with a tree or two and some foundation planting. Rather, they want to live outside for as much of the year as possible, and this may mean having to be prepared for what Mother Nature has planned.Garden Design magazine recently ran a story on its website about what several landscape designers are seeing as trends for this year, and many coincide with what we are seeing, even in conservative Rochester.The humble gas grill and picnic table have given way to the outdoor room. I’ve written about outdoor rooms in the past, but designers are now kicking it up more notches and it’s time for another look.The outdoor kitchen is the family gathering place, just as it is indoors, so they’re being designed to extend their useful life to three seasons. This includes rigid, transparent or retractable walls to deflect the prevailing wind. The kitchen appliances may include a mega-grill, a brick pizza oven, refrigerator and even a microwave.A fire pit will be needed to keep your outdoor room warm in the cooler shoulder seasons. The increased demand for fire pits is stimulating the creative juices for landscape designers. They aren’t just an old, cut-off 55 gallon drum, or even a portable fire pit from a home store anymore. Fire pits are now built-in and permanent, and are surrounded by furniture that would rival the nicest living room furniture, except that the structures and fabrics are designed to withstand the variability of three-season weather.Here in our area, most of your outdoor living space will have to be winterized, unless it’s truly an indoor-outdoor space with sliding or folding walls that will protect it. Otherwise, you will need either on-premises storage or a rented storage unit. Instructions for winterizing the appliances should come with them.Outdoor lighting has also changed. LED has taken over. While these lights may cost a bit more initially, they’ll save you money over the long haul. LED bulbs are very energy efficient and versatile. They can be found in traditional landscape lights, like path lights and in string lights or café lights. LED lights are also available with multiple colors in the same bulb so you can change color for different moods or themes. Best of all, some LED lighting systems can be set up to be controlled from your smartphone.Other hardscape items like fences, arbors and even houses are being painted darker, primary colors rather than the neutral tones that have been traditional. This is a trend from Europe, where some houses and fences are even painted black to highlight the landscaping.There you have it – the 2016 hardscape trends. Next week I’ll tell you about some exciting new trends in greenscaping. Oh, yes. Garden Gnomes are back in style.
Some gardeners’ green thumbs are already starting to get itchy. If you are one of those facing a long winter before you can start getting dirt under your fingernails again, there are a number of gardening things you can do in winter,First, of course, is to give your houseplants tender loving care. Another is to check out your winter landscape, taking photos and jotting down notes in your journal. Be especially observant of places that appear empty or where plants may soften the starkness of winter.Do some sketches to see where you would like to fill in this spring. Your goal should be for your landscape to be stunning regardless of the season. Some eye-catching plants may create winter interest with their textured bark, others with berries, colorful branches or even winter blooms. Some of these plants, like winterberry, put on their best show in winter.I’m not suggesting that you plant only winter-interest plants but rather that you mix winter-interest plants into your total plant palette for four season beauty.Total Landscape Care, a industry trade magazine, has suggested several plants that create winter interest. Here are a few evergreens on the list that are hardy in our region:
Next week, I’ll introduce you to some new plant varieties that provide winter color and texture.If you’d like professional help, our designers are able to spend more time with you during the winter. They can look at your landscape and your sketches. You can share the notes from your journal and your photos, and look through our vast winter plant palette, including these new varieties. Together, we can develop a plan for 12 month beauty. Then first thing next spring, we can begin planting so you can enjoy your updated landscape for the full season.
Do you have a Plant Health Care (PHC) program in place for 2016? If not, this would be a good time to make the move. Going into the new year with a PHC program in place lets us attack your plants’ enemies while they are asleep. Most insects are dormant now, so, if you sign up for a PHC program now, we can take care of some pests before they wake up and others soon after they break dormancy.More people are familiar with integrated pest management (IPM) than PHC. IPM is actually a part of PHC. A true PHC program is cradle to grave. It starts with planting the right plant in the right place. It includes cultural practices, such as pruning, and it includes IPM.IPM simply means that we practice all control methods from picking bugs off plants by hand to applying the most sophisticated chemotherapy. When diagnosing a problem, we, and you, decide on the control regimen that will be most effective with the least environmental impact and best fits your ecological preferences.By having a PHC program in place during the dormant season, we can begin a control program when insects are weakest (i.e. while pests are dormant, early in the season or at the beginning of a pest’s lifecycle, when they are small and vulnerable). At that time, less aggressive treatment methods can often be used. We can use treatments like horticultural oils and soaps rather than chemical pesticides.This is a much better strategy than treating when you see the pests. When you see them, insects are usually well into their lifecycle and resistant to many of the natural controls. Our trained PHC professionals can see them, or the signs they leave, early in their lifecycle, or even when they’re dormant.PHC can be compared to human wellness programs. Human wellness programs promote annual physicals and periodic check-ups to diagnose and treat any problems before they become serious. This often results in less aggressive treatment and more positive prognoses. Wellness care is so effective in humans that insurance companies encourage their subscribers to participate, and often waive the copay for wellness visits.PHC is not a new concept. It has been a tool available to arborists for more than 20 years. IPM has been available to arborists and farmers even longer. Now that you know all about this wellness care for your plants, we look forward to hearing from you.
Ever wonder why some plants are hardy enough to grow in our climate and others aren’t? The biology would take much more space than I have and require many more words than you want to read. So, I’ll give you the simplified version.Hardy plants have evolved methods for acclimating to the pending cold weather. It isn’t much different for us humans. Have you ever had friends or relatives visit from the south in the middle of winter and feel cold all during their visits? Meanwhile, you feel perfectly comfortable. That’s because your body spent autumn acclimating to the coming winter. Your visitors hadn’t acclimated. They stepped off the plane into a Western New York winter when their bodies were used to balmy temperatures.If you go south in winter, you’ll notice that most trees and shrubs that are deciduous here still have their leaves in the subtropics. Our lower nighttime temperatures and shorter days triggered a series of changes in plants that began their preparation for winter. The changing foliage color was the most obvious. However, other changes were going on inside the plants even before they defoliated.Deciduous trees and shrubs made lots of food through photosynthesis and stored it in the roots, trunk and branches. In addition to sugar, this food includes an amino acid that lowers the freezing point of the water inside the cells. Even though woody plants can grow tall and hold up buildings, their cells are mostly water and they have to keep that from freezing and bursting their cells. Some northern tree species actually produce a special protein, called “anti-freeze” protein, that prevents the water inside the cell from freezing. The tree pumps this protein into the space around the cells to protect them.Evergreens, particularly conifers, are northern trees that have adapted to surviving our cold winters without losing their needles. Their bodily functions slow down considerably, but their biggest problem is desiccation, which is why I advocate applying an anti-desiccant when preparing for winter.Nature prepares evergreens for their leaf retention role in several ways. Needles are actually tightly rolled leaves. The shape enables more water to be retained. Also, evergreens produce a thick, waxy coating – kind of like their own anti-desiccant – on their needles. This works fine, except when high winds blow the transpired water droplets off the leaves. This is when additional anti-desiccant is needed.Besides reabsorbing transpired water, evergreens also depend on snow for some of the water they need for photosynthesis. Some also are protected by producing the anti-freeze protein mentioned above.Broadleaf evergreens have their own survival mechanism. The leaves curl to protect them against damage from freeze-thaw cycles. Leaves also droop to protect them from cold damage and too much sun. If this sounds far fetched, check out your rhododendrons. The leaves look like they are unhealthy, but are really just doing their job.Herbaceous plants have other survival mechanisms. Annuals produce seed before the end of the plants’ lifecycle. Seeds are better equipped to survive the winter than the plants. Herbaceous perennials are able to store food in their roots and extensions of their roots. The tulip bulb is a good example of this.There you have the short course in why some plants can survive in our climate and others can’t. It fascinates me how they are able to begin their natural processes by climatic factors, factors that also subliminally influence our preparations for winter and those of wildlife. This synergy is the definition of the term that we use and misuse so much in society today – ecology.
In most winters, we would have had to wash salt off our cars several times by now. How many times have you had to so far this year?Some areas of the country are experiencing major storms, and road salt consumption is probably comparable to or a bit ahead of previous years. This has led to some landscape industry conversations about protecting your trees against road salt damage. Considering that winter snow and the resulting use of road salt is inevitable, I’d like to address any concerns that you may have now, so you can take preventive action if necessary.The most beneficial study that I used to research this blog was published recently by Virginia Tech and its Cooperative Extension. But, isn’t Virginia down south where it’s warm, you ask? It’s down south but not so far south that they don’t get ice and snow. Maybe not as much or as often as we do, but they still get it. Some of the state is also along the Atlantic coast with its salty air and spray.Most of the salt we receive is in the form of salt spray as the plows and salt trucks go past our houses. Where roads are at the top of a hill and your yard slopes down from there, you may have salty soil. The snow plow piles snow, mixed with salty brine, at the top of the hill to leach into the soil and then down the hill, accumulating at the bottom.I already recommended wrapping particularly sensitive trees or shrubs sited near the road with burlap or building a wood structure to protect them from salt spray. Here are some other steps you can take to reduce salt spray damage:
If you aren’t into gardening and lawn care, we have a full staff of designers and horticulturists who would be happy to visit your property, analyze your current plants’ potential for salt damage and make recommendations for dealing with the problem. We have kits to test soil salinity if that’s a concern, and we know the signs of salt damage.Over the years, we haven’t seen widespread de-icing salt damage. Most has been limited to young plants in the path of salt spray. This can be mitigated by wrapping the trees in burlap until they are able to tolerate salt spray. The other cause is that old nemesis – wrong plant in the wrong place.
If you prefer a cut Christmas tree to an artificial tree, here are a few suggestions for keeping you, your family and your home safe, and the holiday season enjoyable.Start by buying the freshest tree possible. There are Christmas tree farms all around the area where you can cut your own or buy a tree that a staff member cuts right before your eyes. When you get the tree home, leave it outside in a cool, shaded, protected space like an unheated garage until you are ready to trim it. If the forecast is for mild weather, cut a half inch off the base of the trunk and put the tree in a bucket of water. You will probably have to cut off several of the lower branches to place it in the bucket, but that’s OK because you’ll have to do that to fit the tree into the stand.Cutting a section off the base of the tree allows water into the circulation vessels in the trunk. As soon as a cut conifer is exposed to air, especially cold air, the sap solidifies, becomes resin and plugs water’s access to the circulation vessels. Cutting that sealed end and immediately placing it in water prevents that from happening. You may have to remove another section before you put the tree into its stand, too.Be sure your tree stand has room for plenty of water and check the level every day. Penn State researchers recommend a quart of water for every inch of trunk diameter. Don’t let the water run out. Also check the foliage daily by running your fingers across the needles to see if they are dry and brittle. Keeping the tree moist goes a long way toward preventing fires, as well as extending the time you can enjoy your tree. When your tree dries out and doesn’t accept water anymore, that’s the time to remove it.Some put aspirin and other additives in the tree water; others spray the tree with an anti-desiccant like Wilt-Pruf. Researchers at Penn State found that none of these extends tree life enough to warrant the extra cost. However, none of the additives, which also include commercial floral and tree preservatives, molasses, sugar, soft drinks and honey, costs so much that the expense of adding them will take a chunk our of your holiday budget. None of them do any harm that we know of. So, if they give you peace of mind, go ahead and use an additive.Be sure the tree isn’t near any heat sources like fireplaces, heaters, heat vents or direct sunlight. Lowering the room temperature will slow the drying process.I present these thoughts in the spirit of the holidays and with the hope that you and yours enjoy a wonderful holiday season and a happy and prosperous New Year.
As the winter holidays get closer and closer, a sense of peace begins to envelope us. The days are at their shortest, but the darkness contributes to the peace that surrounds us.Dark nights and cold weather give us a good reason to enjoy a fire. Whether it involves bringing wood (local hardwood, I hope) in from outdoors and rustically lighting it or simply flipping the switch on a gas fireplace, the result is light and warmth. I hope you are able to be surrounded by the warmth of family as well.Whichever holiday tradition you and your family follow, it is my sincere hope, and that of the entire Birchcrest Tree & Landscape family, that this season and all of 2016 be happy, healthy and prosperous.Thank you for the confidence and support that you place in us. You have my personal promise that we will serve you to the best of our ability in 2016.
We don’t know what kind of winter we have in store. Although the weather has been quite mild so far, we can’t be sure what 2016 will bring. Meteorologists don’t even agree on their long range forecasts. So, it behooves us to be prepared.It has been some time since the whole Rochester area has been hit by a tree-breaking storm. I won’t go out on a limb (pun intended) and predict that we may have one this winter. But I always err on the side of caution. That’s why I’m suggesting that you prepare your trees just in case. You don’t have to reconcile yourself to the inevitable “if it’s meant to be.” Here are some protective actions you can take.
Remember, it usually costs more to remove and replace a tree than it does for preventive care. Protect your valuable investments (the trees, your house, cars, pool and lawn). Take the advice above and be sure your trees are able to withstand anything Mother Nature chooses to heap upon them this winter.
Once again, Birchcrest Tree & Landscape is one of Rochester’s Top 100 fastest growing, privately owned companies. For that, we thank each of you who put your trust in the 120 professionals who are part of the Birchcrest family. We also thank Rochester Business Alliance and KPMG, LLP for sponsoring this recognition.To be eligible for this honor, a company must have earned at least $1 million in revenue in each of the three most recent fiscal years. In Birchcrest’s 34 years, we have enjoyed steady growth through the years. Qualifying for the Top 100 list for the past two years reminds me of the old adage: “Slow and steady wins the race.”Much of the credit for the company’s success can be attributed to the dedication, education and creativity of our staff. Birchcrest employs 13 ISA Certified Arborists, two ISA Board Certified Master Arborists, eight New York State Certified Pesticide Applicators and nine NYS Certified Nursery & Landscape Professionals.On behalf of the more than 100 members of the Birchcrest family, thank you for your business, and we look forward to serving even more of you in 2016.
Last week, I shared TLC (tender loving care) ideas for your Christmas tree, which you take into the house for a couple of weeks. This week, I’d like to make some suggestions about giving your outdoor trees a holiday gift. You know which trees. They’re standing out there in your yard taking all the bad weather Mother Nature sends their way. Still, they continue to give us the oxygen we breathe, clean the air of dust and dirt, sequester carbon and slow water run off.Winter may be the season when most people hunker down but our arborists don’t. They’re eager to prune trees in winter, when they are dormant and leafless. Dormancy acts as nature’s anesthetic and defoliation bares their bones, and this is good for pruning trees. Winter pruning gives trees time to “heal” or, more accurately, to callus while dormant, rather than when they are expending energy to flower, leaf out and grow.Bare bones provide our arborists with a good view of a tree’s structure so they can shape it quickly and accurately. We can remove just the branches necessary to thin the tree while retaining its natural shape. The lack of leaves also makes clean up easier, and this saves time and money.Pruning lightens branch weight, which is a good idea at this time of year. Branches try their best to withstand the ferocious winds that can blow our way, and we like to make sure they’re able to withstand even the worst winds.Many of the most beautiful trees have weak forks and co-dominant stems. Co-dominant stems occur when the trunk divides and grows in two or more directions. Although co-dominant stems may look to be the same size, one is always weaker than the other and will eventually fail and break. This can be prevented by cabling and bracing.Winter is the ideal season to install cabling and bracing, just as it is for pruning. We can see the weak points and get to them easily. We install a threaded rod at the fork of the co-dominant stems and hold it in place with large washers and nuts. Further up in the tree, we install eyebolts in strategic locations and connect them with steel cables. This allows the tree to flex but not so much that it will break. As the tree grows, you’ll not even see the hardware. Since this work includes drilling into the tree, winter installations have time to begin callusing before spring.There’s still time to put your trees on your holiday gift list. Call for more details.
With the holidays coming, I’d like to help you with your gift selections. If you have a person on your list who has everything, here are some ideas.If that person is a gardener, or interested in plants and landscaping, there are many gifts that you can give. If he or she isn’t a gardener but has a nicely landscaped home, there are still a number of green gift choices. The selection is dictated by your budget.For gardeners, you might consider a book or a gift card to their favorite garden center. There are thousands of titles to choose from. Some are self published and others are published by companies like Timber Press and Cold Springs who specialize in gardening books. Check the gardening sections of local and national bookstores or go online to amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. For self published books, just Google the specific gardening topic – for example, air plant books.A live learning experience may be another option. Enroll your friend in the Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener program or a membership or course at the Rochester Civic Garden Center. The center’s catalog of courses can be downloaded at rcgc.org. Ticket information for the center’s annual spring symposium is also on that site.For both gardeners and non-gardeners, consider a gift of Birchcrest services, such as a Plant Health Care program, a lawn care program, winter pruning of their favorite trees, or spring clean-up. Or, you can just give a Birchcrest gift certificate and let the recipient choose the service.There you have it; some gifts for personal growth and some to make the growing season easier for your gift recipient. When it comes to the person who has everything, they can’t have everything gardening. There are just too many choices.
Outdoor power equipment makes landscape management a lot easier. Without these machines, maintaining your own landscape could be very challenging. So, after a summer of helping you keep your yard attractive, they deserve some tender, loving care and a winter of rest.By outdoor power equipment, I mean your lawn mower, cultivator and handheld equipment like your string trimmer, leaf blower and hedge trimmer. The place to start is with the manual that came with the machine. That will give you the manufacturer’s recommendations for winterizing. Follow it to maintain your warranty. If you don’t have the manual, here are some generic recommendations.All equipment needs to be cleaned. If you let dirt and grass clippings build up, they begin to corrode the metal. Tip your lawn mower on its side so you can remove clumps of grass stuck to the underside of the deck. If there are clippings still sticking to the deck, spray the deck with the high pressure setting on your hose nozzle. If there’s still some dirt after that, scrape the deck with a putty knife and spray it again.While you’re spraying and scrubbing, you might as well include your manual equipment like shovels, trowels, rakes, pruners, loppers and weed diggers.Fall is a good time to change your mower’s oil. Get all the dirty oil out and replace it with nice, clean, new oil. Be sure you do replace the oil now. Don’t wait until spring or you may forget. Have you ever run a mower without oil? The engine seizes right up.You’ll probably need to change the spark plug in the spring so you might as well change it now while you’re working on the mower.If you have a little rotary tiller, officially called a cultivator, clean off the tines using your hose and a kitchen scruffy or wire brush. Don’t be too aggressive with a wire brush, though. You probably won’t need to change the oil since most of these engines are two strokes (you mix the oil and gas).You can probably clean the handhelds with your hose. You may also need to give it a light once over with the scruffy. Be sure all engines are cold when you spray. Cold water and hot engines can result in cracked engine blocks. You also don’t have to worry about changing the oil since most of these engines are two strokes, which don’t have oil in a crankcase.You should also remove any fuel remaining in the tank or stabilize it with a stabilizer that you can be buy an outdoor power equipment or auto parts store. This is recommended because sitting idle for some time, especially in the cold weather, can cause “varnish” to form in the fuel, which can then gum up the carburetor.I purposely didn’t include chain saws in this discussion because I hope most of you don’t have one. They’re dangerous tools that are best left to the professionals. If you do have a chain saw, you probably use it year round so it requires ongoing maintenance, and that could be material for another blog.
You’ve taken all the precautions we’ve suggested in these blogs, but there’s a nagging feeling that you can still do more to assure the health and safety of your trees and shrubs this winter. Here are some added precautions you can take.The snow in your driveway is full of road salt and grime. Even if you never salt your driveway, it will still have salt carried on to it from the road. Surely, you’ve noticed the dirty snow that can solidify underneath your car and in the wheel wells. This can drop on to the driveway.Dirty snow is very damaging to both the plants and the soil. You may not be able to completely prevent salt and grime from getting on your driveway but you can minimize the amount that gets on your plants and the soil in your planting beds.Shovel snow carefully to prevent the grime and salt from dropping into your planting beds. When you see dark grime on your shovel, throw it away from your beds. You can use the same caution with a snow blower by manipulating the chute near planting beds and trees. If you have a “plow guy,” instruct him to put snow in designated spots away from your plantings.Another precaution is to be careful where you walk. Avoid walking on soil or lawn that doesn’t have a layer of snow to act as a cushion. If the soil isn’t frozen, you can compact it when walking over it. If it doesn’t have snow cover, that melted snow is most likely in the soil and stepping on it is like stepping on a wet sponge. Your weight displaces the water in the soil pores and the particles are pushed together. If the ground is frozen but not covered with snow, you can break grass blades when you walk over them. When this condition exists, walking on frozen grass has the same effect as walking on dry, burnt grass in a typical summer. It breaks the blades.Winter can be trying for all of us and we have to take extra precautions when walking, when driving and even when clearing snow. When those recommended steps above seem like an extra effort you don’t want to take, just remember that you can go inside your warm house when you finish. Your plants, on the other hand, can only stand there and cope with winter in the way nature equipped them. Making life easier for them is an inexpensive way to maximize the return on your landscaping investment.
For years, the medical profession has known that trees contribute to health and well being. Research conducted in the 1970s by Dr. Roger S. Ulrich found that surgical patients recovered significantly sooner when they could look out at trees than when they could see no trees outside their windows.Dr. Ulrich’s research was, arguably, the go-to reference when discussing trees’ contribution to health and well being. More research has been done in the intervening years and, today, there’s an expanded body of knowledge on the subject.Now, the medical profession is teaming up with the tree care profession to look into how trees and natural settings can contribute to the reduction of such health problems as obesity, heart disease and nutrition.ISA offers these statistics on how trees improve our health:
While this information centers on trees, I believe that a well designed and maintained landscape contributes significantly to our well being. Trees are the backbone of any landscape, so trees are still the most important factor.Before it’s covered in snow, I invite you to take a tour of your yard. Take time to sit in your favorite spot. Does your landscape relieve stress? Can you relax in your landscape? Do you feel better when you sit and enjoy the scenery? If you answered no, now’s a good time to start a transformation. Remember, Fall is for Planting.
Have you applied pesticides or fertilizer this season? If so, where is the leftover material stored? On the floor of your unheated garage or garden shed? Where are you going to store them for the winter? Same place? Bad idea!Pesticides and fertilizer should be stored, preferably in their original containers, in a cool, dark, dry environment. They should be kept from freezing and away from open flames and excessive heat. For specific storage instructions, read the package label.Keep pesticides and fertilizers that were sold in bags or cardboard cartons away from moisture. This means up, off dirt or concrete floors. Also make sure all opened packages are well sealed and stored away from children and pets.You may be able to make your storage job very easy. Check the packages to see if they have expiration dates. If a product is out of date or you have been storing it improperly for years, it’s best to get rid of it and start fresh in the spring.Disposing of pesticides and fertilizer is easier said than done. It’s on a par with electronics, prescription drugs and batteries. First check the label for disposal instructions. Pesticide labels have to be approved by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) before products can be registered. State and local laws, however, may be more restrictive than the disposal instructions on the product label.Our home county – Monroe County – has a procedure for disposing of pesticides, fertilizers and other hazardous wastes. All the details are at monroecounty.gov/ecopark. If you live outside Monroe County check with your town or county to find out how to dispose of these materials.Pesticide selection, use and disposal is serious business. It isn’t just some “stuff” that you buy to try to take care of a problem. It has to be handled properly to be effective and to protect you and the environment. If you’d prefer to not have to deal with handling these products, we have a full staff of lawn care and Plant Health Care professionals, licensed by the state, who can take that chore off your hands.
Fertilizer companies advertise their product as plant food. Who would want to starve a plant by withholding food? So, people buy the product. According to the late tree biologist, Dr. Alex Shigo, however, plants make their own food so fertilizer is not plant food.Good soil is full of minerals, beneficial fungi and bacteria, and chemical elements that are essential for good plant growth. These nutrients and minerals also contribute to the photosynthesis process by which plants make food.The problem is that much of our soil is not that good. Developers scrape away good top soil at the start of a building project. Some may store it and return it when landscaping the finished site. Others sell it and then truck in soil from somewhere else. As a result, the soil in your yard may not be as nutritious to plants as it should be. Fertilizer replenishes nutrients depleted or missing from the soil.Plants need three macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. They also need all or some of these 8 micronutrients in varying amounts: boron (B), chlorine (Cl), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Nl) and zinc (Zn).The percentages by weight of each of the three macronutrients are represented by the three numbers on the front of the package. They are always in the same order – N (nitrogen), P (phosphorous) and K (potassium).Micronutrients do not get their name from their importance but, rather, from the amount needed. Plants only need tiny amounts of micronutrients. The specific micronutrients and the amount they need vary by plant.With that explanation, the answer to the title question is that you need to fertilize to replenish soil nutrients. The exact amount and formulation can be determined by a soil test. However, a good rule of thumb is that your lawn needs several fertilizations in spring and at least one in fall. Perennials and shrubs may need fertilization in spring and fall. We usually only fertilize trees in the fall to aid in their final push to manufacture enough food to sustain them through the winter and next spring’s leaf flush.We apply fertilizer to trees and shrubs in liquid form, using a probe to inject it right into the soil at the root zone. Fertilizer has to be in liquid form for plants to absorb it, and this method places it where the plant can begin absorbing it immediately.If you have questions about fertilization and your property’s needs, call us to schedule an appointment. One of our plant health professionals will look over your property and give you recommendations specific to your landscape.
By this time most years, you would have mowed your lawn one last time, breathed a sigh of relief, winterized your mower and pulled out your snow blower. Not this year. As I’ve written here several times this season, this isn’t a normal year. You still have to mow at least one more time. Sorry.If you didn’t mow your lawn before this last, frosty weekend, you should lower your mower to two inches and give it one last mowing. It isn’t good for the grass to go into winter dormancy long.If your grass is long when it goes into winter dormancy, it will hold more moisture than short grass. This can lead to various turf diseases and unsightly, matted grass that will be exposed when the snow melts in spring. Think about the difficulty drying long hair versus short hair after a shower.You may be able to combine two tasks into one – mowing and leaf mulching. Unless you have mountains of leaves on the grass surface, you can use the mulching feature on the mower to chop leaves up finely and let them fall on to the lawn. There, they’ll decompose over the winter and fertilize the lawn. If more leaves fall, there’s no reason why you can’t run the mulching mower over the lawn again, unless it has been unusually rainy, in which case you’ll have to rake or blow.Whatever you do, though, don’t let the leaves stay on the lawn. Like long grass, leaves will retain the water from melting snow and provide the perfect climate for fungal diseases to infect your valuable turfgrass.A little preventive maintenance in the fall can go a long way toward assuring a lush, green lawn in the spring.
Trees form our landscape’s canopy. Their lush, green foliage relaxes us and keeps us cool in the summer. As winter approaches, deciduous trees lose their leaves and gird themselves for whatever Old Man Winter brings.Your trees may look perfectly healthy to your untrained eye. However, dangerous conditions could be lurking just below the bark, in the center of the trunk, the roots or anywhere else in or on the tree.Before the snow, ice and winds of winter put their annual stress on your trees, it would be a good idea to have a professional inspection by one of our arborists. As living organisms, trees are subject to internal diseases and breakage while the outside looks as normal as ever.A tree health inspection should be an annual practice, especially if you have tree limbs hanging over your house, car, pool or other parts of your yard. A high wind gust could break weak limbs and drop them right where they can injure people or damage property.Besides checking for weak limbs and branches, the arborist will check for rot in the center of the tree or in the roots. He will also check for radial cracking. A previous wind storm could have caused one or more weak limbs to twist, resulting in internal cracking that makes a cross section of the branch look like it had been cut like a pie. These limbs are very weak and susceptible to breakage in subsequent storms.The arborist will check for insect and disease activity. He’ll pay special attention to boring insects that do their damage beneath the bark. This is damage that is difficult to see unless looking closely, and most of the signs occur high in the trees.The inspection findings will be detailed in a report that includes a prioritized list of recommendations that will be presented to you. Recommendations can range from just monitoring the tree health to pruning, pest treatment or bracing and cabling. In some extreme cases, we may have to remove the tree,Very strong winds can buffet our area. Last winter, we witnessed the added weight that unrelenting snow can put on tree limbs, and many of us still remember the mighty ice storms that crippled our area several times during the last quarter century. Our more mature trees also witnessed these events. Some survived while others weren’t so lucky. A tree inspection will give you the peace of mind of knowing the odds that your trees can continue to survive.
We plant evergreens for their graceful beauty and magnificent color that breaks up winter’s white and drab brown. This beauty and color come with a price. In winter, evergreens are exposed to winds that can dry them out and cause branch dieback. The dieback appears as brown patches on an otherwise green tree or shrub.Unlike deciduous trees and shrubs that go dormant in winter, evergreens continue their bodily functions, although at a much slower pace. This includes photosynthesis, which depends on water and nutrients from the soil reacting with the sun’s energy to make food that’s stored in the plant’s root system until it’s needed elsewhere in the plant.Water and oxygen are byproducts of photosynthesis. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere for us to breathe and water is released through the plant’s leaves or needles. This release of water is called transpiration.When the ground freezes in winter, roots can’t absorb water from the soil. The plant then depends on reabsorbing transpired water back in through the leaves or needles. High winds, however, blow the water off the leaves or needles before it can be reabsorbed, causing the leaves or needles to dry out. This is called desiccation.Desiccation can be minimized by spraying a wax like substance, called anti-desiccant, on your evergreens. The most popular brand name is Wilt-Pruf. You can buy it in spray bottles at garden centers if you have only a few evergreens to spray. We use a backpack sprayer to apply antidesiccant to properties with greater needs, such as large evergreen trees or many evergreen shrubs.When deciding on how many evergreens need spraying on your property, include broadleaf evergreens, such a boxwoods and rhododendrons, as well as conifers. With more leaf area, broadleaf evergreens tend to transpire more water than conifers.Tender trees, especially young trees that you just planted this year, may need a burlap coat, as well as anti-desiccant. Just drive poles into the ground around the perimeter of the tree, wrap with burlap and staple it to the poles. Be sure to keep the top open to moisture and sunlight. Wrapping may also be needed for trees planted close to the road to protect them from road salt spray.Anti-desiccant is one of the most economical insurance policies you can buy to increase the survival rate of evergreen trees and shrubs. You should plan ahead, however, since there is a relatively short application opportunity. It has to be applied when the temperature falls below 40ºF but after the chance of warm days passes since warm days can melt the material. You can buy anti-desiccant at the garden store now and hold on to it until needed. If you want us to apply it, you should call now so we can schedule the application.
Remember last winter when the snow and cold weather turned your valuable landscape into a buffet for deer, rabbits, mice and other mammals? We don’t know what this winter will bring, but it’s best to follow the Boy Scout motto – Be Prepared.This is the right time of year to begin planning your strategy for dealing with hungry animals. Depending on what method you decide upon, some pre-emptive action may have to be taken now, while the weather is still warm and the ground isn’t frozen.The three peskiest mammals that we have to be concerned about are the whitetail deer, cottontail rabbit and field mouse. Each requires a different tactic to “discourage” them from destroying your valuable trees and shrubs. Regardless of what deterrent you select, it won’t prevent a starving animal from feeding on your plants. These animals that we like to see on our property in the summer become nuisances in winter because the snow covers their preferred food sources.People express the most concern about deer feeding on their trees and shrubs in winter. That’s because they’re so big and eat higher up in the tree than the smaller pests. As a result, it’s easier to see the damageThe biggest danger actually comes from the smallest of the big three – the field mouse. These pests prefer to eat under cover of snow or mulch; it protects them from cats, birds of prey and other predators. They burrow down and eat the tender bark around the base of young trees and shrubs. If they’re hungry enough, or have enough companions, they can eat all the way around the trunk or stem, girdling and killing the tree.The two best mouse deterrents are to be sure you don’t have any mulch volcanoes around your trees or shrubs and to keep the snow shoveled away from the base of trees. Like mice, rabbits also like tree bark. However, they don’t try to hide. Brazen rabbits will stand right on the snow and eat bark off your young trees. While deer will eat trunk bark, they prefer twigs. Pruning off any branches below six feet will discourage animals from browsing there.Wrapping the trunks of young trees with hardware cloth and building a fence around shrubs will make it difficult for animals to eat the bark. Wrap the cloth as high as six feet above the ground, or above the anticipated snow height, and you have a deterrent for all the pests. Be sure to remove the hardware cloth in the spring to accommodate the trunk’s new growth.While the hardware cloth is, arguably, the most effective method, some others include commercial preparations, fox urine, bloodmeal, domestic rabbit pellets, human hair and even a shower radio and a string of noisy cans. There isn’t much evidence that any of these tactics work well but anything is worth a try.Black deer fencing is becoming popular, but fencing in a whole landscape can be expensive and there may be some liability factors associated with that. I recommend checking with your town and insurance agent before installing it.Some plants are unpalatable to certain animals. I’m certainly not recommending that you rip out your current landscape and replace it with these plants. It would be a very boring landscape, but planting a few plants on the list near an especially prized tree or shrub will make animals think twice before coming near.Our landscape designers have a list of animal-resistant plants and they would be happy to share it with you if you contact us.
Horticulture has two mantras that we always remind you of when talking or writing about planting. One is “right plant, right place,” which we’ll discuss later. The other is “Fall is for Planting.”Fall is the ideal time to plant almost everything from lawns to trees. There are a few plants, however, that should be planted in the spring. Annuals are chief among them. The Morton Arboretum in Chicago also recommends waiting until spring to plant some slow to establish tree species, such as bald cypress, American hornbeam, ginkgo, larch, magnolia, hemlock, sweetgum, tuliptree, and willow. Also, broadleaved evergreens, such as rhododendrons, and narrow-leafed evergreens, such as yews, prefer spring planting. In general, plants with shallow, fibrous root systems can be planted easier in the fall than those with fewer, larger roots, according to the Morton Arboretum scientists.The most generally accepted fall planting time is August through October, although I shy away from planting in August unless the owner is prepared to water frequently. August is often very dry and hot around here. Then someone throws a switch right after Labor Day and days continue to be warm but nights cool off. When air temperatures are cooler than soil temperature, plants add root growth rather than top growth, resulting in better developed root systems in spring.I have one caution. Conifers should be planted earlier than hardwoods. So, I recommend planting conifers in September and hardwoods in either September or October. You can plant hardwoods right up until the ground freezes but there won’t be time for the roots to get as well established as they would if planted in September or October.Many nurseries and garden centers order new plants for fall planting. You’ll be able to tell which are new and which survived the summer drought. If you’re looking for a bargain, you may be able to negotiate deep discounts on the survivors. Personally, I don’t like to do that. I rather pay list price and get new stock.Plant the same way in fall as you do in spring. Select a planting site whose conditions are right for the plant you select. Remember – right plant, right place. Dig the planting hole two to three times bigger around than the rootball, but only as deep. If potted, remove the plant from its pot. If balled and burlapped, remove the wire basket or rope but leave the burlap around the ball.Set the plant in the hole and backfill, stopping occasionally to press the backfill to fill in any air pockets. Don’t pile soil up against the trunk. Finally, water well.It’s good to mulch any new planting, but it’s especially important in fall. The mulch will help moderate the temperature shifts during the winter. Spread 2 to 3 inches, but don’t pile it up against the trunk in a mulch volcano. Before winter, add another inch of mulch, but be prepared to remove that in spring.This year has been a year of extremes, from record cold to record heat, from record rainfall to near drought. I won’t even try to predict what kind of fall and early winter we are in for, so I suggest that you do your fall planting early so that your new acquisitions can become well established while weather conditions remain seasonal. That way, they’ll be better able to withstand nature’s winter assaults.
If you’re one of those people who’s not gardening due to time constraints, I just found some time for you. Try “pot-in-pot” gardening. There’s nothing to it.Although developed for nursery production applications, this process is now finding favor among time-strapped home gardeners. The traditional way of planting containerized plants is to buy nursery stock and transplant it into decorative pots. Pot-in-pot involves just slipping plants, still in their nursery pots, into decorative containers.Recently, a friend used this pot-in-pot technique for flowers he traditionally places on graves of loved ones for the summer. In past years, he bought flats of flowers and transplanted them into decorative pots. This year, he bought hanging baskets the same size as the decorative containers. All he had to do was lower the hanging baskets into the decorative pots using the hangers and then remove the hangers.I tried that at home as well, except that I opted for nursery pots instead of hanging baskets. As the photo shows, I placed nursery pots of flowers into three matching, decorative containers. One had yellow marigolds, another red geraniums and the third had a small blue and white flower. That plant was near the end of life when planted, so I replaced it with chenille firetail. I’ve since changed out the marigolds, as well, replacing them with yellow mums.Plan to water these plants more often than you would plants transplanted into containers. The nursery pots are just that much smaller than the nursery pots that water has to be replenished more often. That’s in a normal year. We had enough rain in July that I only had to water once or twice. If there’s no rain for a couple of days, I check them with a moisture meter and water if necessary.At summer’s end, when these flowers need to be changed out, I’ll just pull the nursery pots out, put the plants in the compost heap and recycle the pots. Then I’ll get appropriately sized nursery pots of chrysanthemums (mums) and plant them the same way – pot-in-pot.If you want to plant annuals in the ground for quick change out, you can bury nursery pots in the planting bed right up to the rim. Then buy plants in same size nursery pots and slip them into the buried containers. When they have completed their lifecycle, just lift the inner pots out and replace them with fall flowers.I wrote in the opening paragraph that this technique was developed in the nursery industry. Nursery managers plant row after row of sapling trees using the pot-in-pot method. This way, they can just lift the trees out of their liner pots to ship to landscapers and garden stores.We in the tree and landscape business are just as time challenged as you, so I was happy to learn that home gardeners have embraced this pot-in-pot technique.
You can make three gardening friends happy and your garden happy with just a few minutes of work. All you have to do is divide an overgrown perennial. A few more minutes to split another perennial and you can please three more friends and your garden will be even happier. Fall is the best season for all this happiness to take place.If you’re new to gardening, you surely have seen those small perennials you planted grow and grow and grow over the last year or two or more. Gardens don’t like crowding and, despite the temptation to rip out those unruly perennials, the proper procedure is to split them.Fall is a good time to split perennials because fall is for planting. You’ll give each new perennial that you create an opportunity to become well established before winter sets in.Perennial splitting can be good exercise and a stress reliever. Here’s how it’s done:
Perennials give gardens their lasting beauty, beauty that it behooves us to share with others. When you split overgrown perennials, you extend your gardening season, or someone else’s, without spending a penny. I call that a good deal, and it’s fun.
After spending time enjoying the summer beauty of your landscape, it will soon be time to begin preparing it for fall and winter. I recommend taking time during these last few weeks of garden leisure to write down all the tasks you will have to do before winter sets in. That way, you can prioritize your work and go about it in an efficient manner, rather than frantically trying to remember what you have to do each weekend.Here is a check list of preparations that I’ve identified. I’ll cover some in more detail in later posts.
Fortunately, we have a couple of months before we need to really batten down the hatches. But here are some additional late season tasks to put on the schedule:
I hope you heeded my advice to sit back and enjoy the result of your gardening labors during the dog days of summer because, as you can see here, a significant amount of work awaits you as summer melts into autumn.
Good news! Barring any sudden, severe drought at this late point in the summer, preparing your lawn for fall will be a bit easier than it would in a normal year.We’ve had no dry spell this summer. Consequently, the grass didn’t go dormant, brown up, crunch under foot and create good conditions for weeds to take up residence. This means that we shouldn’t have to cross our fingers and hope that our lawns will green up with the return of cooler temperatures and regular rainfall.This fall, your major lawn care tasks will be to renovate any bare spots caused by grubs – after treating for them of course – and applying weed control to broadleaf weeds before they go to seed. This will reduce the chance of seeds germinating first thing in spring.Grass will continue to grow and make food through photosynthesis until the ground freezes. The turfgrass plants are trying to store as much food in their roots as possible before going dormant so they have sufficient energy to break dormancy in the spring. To be successful, your lawn needs that important inch of water a week and soil nutrients. Although nature usually cooperates in the fall by providing enough rain, you should be prepared to water if nature doesn’t come through.Fertilizing in the fall replenishes the soil nutrients that the grass plants used during the summer. Lack of summer dormancy means that your turfgrass extracted more minerals and nutrients from the soil to support its ongoing photosynthesis. These nutrients need to be replenished to assure that the grass plants will be able to manufacture sufficient food to sustain themselves through the winter and into early spring.Remember, fertilizer is not plant food. Plants make their own food through photosynthesis. For that reaction to take place, however, the plants need minerals and nutrients present in the soil. If your soil is deficient in any of these nutrients, they need to be replenished through fertilization. You could look at fertilizer as vitamin supplements for plants.With the definition of fertilization in mind, I feel safe in writing that not all lawns need fertilization. If all the essential nutrients are present in your soil, replenishing them is like taking excess vitamin supplements. It doesn’t do any good and may do harm. A good rule of thumb is that, if you needed to fertilize in the spring, you need to fertilize in the fall. If you use a granular fertilizer, you either have to time the application right before it rains or be prepared to water it into the soil.Fall is a good season to aerate your lawn, especially if the grass is thick and the soil heavy, as in clay. Aerating takes many forms. The urban legend that you only have to mow the lawn wearing golf shoes is just that – an urban legend. Aerification is done to loosen the soil. The holes have to penetrate deeper than the roots, and an actual soil plug has to be removed to give the remaining soil space in which to expand.Perhaps the most difficult task is anticipating when your last mowing will be so you can drop your mower down to two or two-and-a-half inches for that final cut of the season. Overwintering with a crew cut will reduce your lawn’s susceptibility to winter fungal diseases. The lawn will also look better when the snow melts next spring because it won’t have that matted look.
